The Saudi National Campaign (SNC) to help Syrian refugees distributes warm clothes to the displaced people in Sihab, southern Amman, on Wednesday. (SPA)

The Saudi National Campaign (SNC) to help Syrian refugees distributed more than 5,000 blankets to their families.

“This is part of the 2 million packages allocated to Syrian refugees during the winter,” SNC Regional Director Badr bin Abdul Rahman Al-Samhan said here Tuesday.

“The winter clothes were distributed among 275 Syrian families comprising 1,402 refugees in Khalidiya district of the Governorate of Mafraq,” Al-Samhan said, pointing out that the service came within the framework of the cooperation extended by the Kingdom to help these refugees who have been displaced in their own land.

Al-Samhan explained that the SNC has drawn out a comprehensive plan to help the refugees in a systematic manner.

More than 4 million people have fled Syria during the course of the war. Most of them fled to neighboring countries such as Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq, while thousands also ended up in more distant countries of the Caucasus, the Arabian Gulf, North Africa and Europe.

As of February 2015, Turkey has become the world’s biggest refugee-hosting country with 2.2 million Syrian displaced people and had spent more than $7.6 billion on direct assistance to refugees.

The refugee crisis began in 2011, when thousands of Syrians fled across the border to neighboring Turkey and Lebanon. By early July 2011, 15,000 Syrian citizens had taken shelter in tent cities, set up in the Yayladağı, Reyhanlı and Altınözü districts of Hatay Province, near Turkey’s border with Syria.

By the end of that month, 5,000 of the refugees had returned to Syria. However, by late June 2011, the number of Syrian refugees in Lebanon had reached around 10,000 people. By mid-July 2011, the first Syrian refugees found sanctuary in Jordan, with their numbers reaching 1,500 by December.

Saudi Arabia has received approximately 2.5 million Syrian refugees since the start of the conflict and spent $700 million in aid, a statement by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reported in September.

“The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia does not intend to speak about its efforts to support Syrian brothers and sisters, during their distress, as it has, since the beginning of the problem, dealt with the situation from a religious and humane perspective, and did not wish to boast about its efforts or attempt to gain media coverage,” the ministry wrote on Facebook.

The statement explained that the refugees have “been given the freedom to move about the country and those who wish to remain in Saudi Arabia (some hundreds of thousands) have been given legal residency status like the remaining residents.” This leaves them able to receive free medical care, get jobs, and attend schools and universities. “The public school system has accepted more than 100,000 Syrian students.”

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